CORONAVIRUS death rates may be as high as 20 percent in Wuhan, the global epicentre of the pandemic after a data reconsideration.

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The re-estimation of the mortality rate in the report considered the time-delay between infection and onset of symptoms, then the "two to eight week" time delay between onset of symptoms and actual death. They found the greater the increase of time between infection and death showed a much greater increase in the death rate. The report read: "A recent time-delay adjusted estimation indicates that the mortality rate of COVID-19 could be as high as 20 percent in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak."

Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies programme, has outlined four factors that might contribute to the differing mortality rates being touted in different regions.

He states the following could be factors, such as who becomes infected, what stage the epidemic has reached in a country, how much testing a country is doing, and how well different healthcare systems are coping.

Arguably the biggest unknown about coronavirus is the true number of people worldwide who have contracted the virus.

With claims that China is hiding data and general testing being reduced in many countries, without that information no accurate death rate can be calculated.